The Girl Who Sat in the Corner

Chapter 3 - Home (alone)

It was dry, hot and windy enough to gently rock the school bus as it waited at traffic lights. Wesley stared out at the distant hills, their bases covered in blue haze and their tops golden in the afternoon light. The bus came to a stop and he walked down the long curving street of large, stucco houses. After the sound of the bus faded in the distance, it was as quiet and lifeless as an abandoned movie set. Somewhere behind him, a central air conditioning system clicked on with a buzz and rumble that settled down to a soft hum that lost itself in a gust of wind.

His house was cool, but not as much as he liked. Their housekeeper, Esmeralda, didn't like to waste electricity when she was the only one there.

"Hola!" she called out.

"Hola," he returned, following her voice into the kitchen.

"How as school today?"

"Okay, I guess." She turned and looked at him with concern.

"Up late again last night, mijo?"

He nodded, "Si," he offered a weak smile.

"You promise me you'll get a good night's sleep tonight, eh? You're a smart boy and you need rest for that wonderful brain of yours to grow. Hokay?"

"I promise," he answered, avoiding her eyes.

She looked down at him, slightly cocking her head. She knew. In fact, Wes often felt that she knew more about him than his parents. For the past few years, he'd spent more time with her than with them.

"Your momma called. She had to fly to Denver this morning. She said she'd try to Skype you tonight. Your dinner's in the fridge." She took off her apron and hung it on its accustomed hook next to the pantry then picked up her purse off the kitchen table. "Really, get to sleep early, okay?" As always, she looked like she was about to give him a motherly hug, but she knew that he had a problem with people touching him, even the few he liked.

"Okay, Esmeralda." He was almost being honest this time.

"See you tomorrow, mijo," and the door closed behind her, her steps walking away fading quickly. That tiny, sweet lady seemed to really care about him sometimes.

The Santa Ana winds had picked up and begun to rattle the windows on the east side of the house and whooshed through the cluster of palm trees in the front yard. He usually liked having the house to himself, but for some reason that afternoon, it felt more empty than usual.

His mom had been spending more and more time flying around the country and sometimes around the world since she was promoted. In exchange for her regular absences, she promised to take him on some far-away vacations using her mountain of frequent-flyer miles. But she didn't seem to have time for vacations anymore.

His father wasn't very happy about all her traveling, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He was a engineering manager for a defense contractor whose name Wes was supposed to avoid mentioning. He was gone "in the field" for three months at a time now and only came home for a week or two. He couldn't say where he was stationed, but Wes had managed to trace the emails he sent to an atoll in the mid-Pacific that Google Earth showed to have a very long runway and several missile platforms along with a smattering of low concrete buildings.

Around home, his mother was cool, aloof and businesslike. She was polite but strict with Esmeralda and strict with him. When it was just the two of them, she wasn't that polite. What confused him was that when he heard her on the phone with clients and coworkers, she was warm and friendly, laughing freely and almost sounding girlish at times.

His father seemed intent on concentrating all his parenting during his brief visits home. He listened to reports (often complaints) from his mother and grilled him on his progress in school, his grades and his activities. No matter what Wesley did, his father expected something more. When his mother complained that he was always behind in his chores, his father would call him irresponsible and lazy. When he got a bad grade in a class that bored him, his father would lecture him, saying he had to "buckle down" or he'd never get anywhere. Though he tried to forget them, those lectures followed him everywhere.

Those visits home were getting harder and harder for Wesley to bear. His father and mother would start arguing and fighting as soon as he went to bed. A lot of those arguments were about him, as well as their jobs and the stress that they blamed on each other. Neither seemed to care very much for the responsibility of being a parent of a smart but socially dysfunctional child. He still could remember the night they were fighting about "the accident" when he realized they were talking about him.

The wind pounded harder on the windows and whined in the trees.

After a while, he took his dinner out and pulled back the plastic wrap that covered it. Chili-cheese meatloaf and mashed potatoes. To be polite, he took a bite and then swept the rest down the garbage disposal before washing his plate. Cooking wasn't one of Esmeralda's strong points and this was his least favorite dinner in the world. But he never had the heart to tell her. Wes grabbed a couple of granola bars out of the cupboard and went up to his room, turning up the air conditioning as he passed by the thermostat.